Geese, Evening Sky

Geese, Evening Sky
The evening sky filled with snow geese.

Geese, Evening Sky. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The evening sky filled with snow geese.

One thing that you don’t understand about bird photography until you do it, is that in order to experience truly remarkable, memorable moments you will spend a lot of time at the opposite end of the spectrum of exciting experiences. The vast majority of your time will be spend watching a quiet landscape in which it seems, at least superficially, that nothing much is going on. Truth be told, there will be moments (sometimes long “moments”) of boredom. You might nap. (I do!) You may do some reading, check your phone for news. Or, best of all, simply immerse yourself in the quiet.

But if you are willing to pay this easy price, you almost certainly will experience a few moments that make it well worth the effort. I still cannot get a particular foggy February morning out of my mind, even though it was years ago when the sun began to break through tule fog as thousands upon thousands of geese and cranes wheeled through the sky in constant motion. That morning, on its own, has led to many 3:00AM wake-up calls and long drives in the. This photograph is from a different but similar moment recently, when many thousands of geese erupted almost continuously from cornfields and filled the sunset sky around me.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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